Welcome to the City of Death
by FranziskavonKarmaWhippedYou
Summary: London. The city of vampires, of crime, of hell. Clive can survive, but the feverishly Changing village girl may not be able to. A city of lies, a city of hatred, a city of murder, ruled by Descole's Mafia and the great Layton's crime. Welcome to London, the city where nothing is acceptable by any standards. Contains prostitutes, AU, OOC and is just about M. BE WARNED!


"This is London, the City of Vampires," the guard announced as Clive approached the great gates. "If you ain't ready to eat or be eaten, you better get your ass to where you came from, little boy." Clive hissed, baring his fangs.

"You think I'd be in a city like this with a naive mindset?" he growled. "Open the gates and I may not tear out your throat." The guard nodded, his face still a prominent scowl, and called up to the gatekeeper, the great gates screeching as they swung open. Nobody inquired to the young girl with Clive, who staggered after him and who he hoisted up into his arms. "Almost there, Flo... Just hang on, alright?"

"Please... hurry..." she whispered, gripping tightly to him lest she fall. Clive nodded, promising to hurry. He didn't know where the hospital was, but he knew it was there. A city of such violence had to have a hospital, lest the death toll become ridiculously high. The hospital was huge, spreading out into several buildings. Clive headed into the leftmost building – he'd done a bit of quick studying to make sure he knew where to go.

There was a young boy in the vampire creation ward, looking terribly panicked and terrified, with a large bite on his neck that was still leaking blood. A single nurse was rushing around, calling for backup though it wasn't coming quickly.

"Can you wait a few minutes?" she called to Clive.

"No, she's already halfway through the process!" he responded quickly. A short man, clearly a vampire from the amazing paleness in his face, wearing a large top hat rushed over. "I take it you know what you're doing?"

"I do," the man replied calmly. "I've been alive around three hundred or so years and have nursed plenty people through the Change. Tell me about the first half of her Change, compare it to yours if you Changed without complication." Clive lay the girl down on a bed, letting the man check her over while the nurse stemmed the boy's bleeding as a group of nurses burst in. They seemed to recognise the man and he rattled off the situation quickly, letting the nurses fetch equipment.

"She's Changed completely normally, but the only difference is she hasn't been given enough nutrition. I had to carry her from my village, in Scotland, and I didn't have a lot of room for supplies," Clive explained. The man nodded, then glanced up at him.

"There's nothing you can do now. Please leave," he said calmly. "You are simply getting in the way now." Clive nodded – he knew the difficulties of nursing anyone through a vampiric Change, and the man would need a lot of focus. Clive sighed and headed out into the waiting room, and one of the nurses about to enter offered him a blanket.

Clive lay down on about three of the seats and pulled the blanket over himself, slowly drifting into dreamless sleep.

* * *

When he finally managed to wake up, in the early hours of the morning, he could hear the boy screaming as his body entered the final stage of the Change. People Changed at different rates – the girl had been fairly slow, giving Clive the benefit of time to get to London. Clive had taken about two or three days to Change and had hated every minute of it.

He entered the ward again. The boy's back was arched and he was hissing and writhing and jerking and screaming. Clive knew the pain well, and while going through it, you didn't think. You just screamed until it went away, then suddenly you had the most amazing lust for blood.

Clive ruthlessly slaughtered and drank all the blood of one of the village members. Hospitals were probably more prepared, with blood packets. Clive had heard of them, but they were a myth to him. Packets of blood that you could buy out a shop! Never as good as fresh blood, but, better than biting everyone's neck. He was rather hungry, so he would have to investigate.

The boy suddenly calmed and stared lustfully at one of the nurses, and Clive could see his fangs glint. A nurse grabbed a blood packet, tore it open and shoved it right at him.

Clive's bloodlust became too strong so he hurried out into the city. Even during the morning hours, there were prostitutes walking around with their breasts hanging out, staring at him, watching him walk. Clive ignored them with some difficulty – he'd never seen a prostitute before! Back in his village, everyone was dressed and covered up.

He found a blood shop fairly quickly. There were people offering to feed directly, but that was more expensive and Clive needed to save his money. He bought himself a blood packet and neatly tore it open with one fang, drinking it down just seconds after he'd purchased it.

After heading back to the hospital, he found that the girl was already a vampire. They had given her a drug that had increased the speed of her Change very drastically, and she was ready for the world, though still a little fragile.

Clive smiled as he approached her. "Was it so bad?"

"Yes!" the girl giggled, swinging her legs back and forth as she sat at the end of the bed. "I don't feel very different, either." She looked up at him with bright eyes. "Thank you for saving me."

"I had to save you. I was the one who bit you," Clive mumbled, rubbing the back of his head. "Now we just need to figure out what to do next. We can't go back to the village. We're just going to end up infecting everyone and then what do we do?" The girl nodded and she sighed.

"I can help," the man who had helped her piped up. "If you need somewhere to stay, I've been looking for tenants. I'll be lenient on the rent until you get yourself a job and a steady income. I'm Hershel Layton, a professor of archaeology at Gressenheller University. Yourselves?"

"Clive Dove, random nobody from a Scottish village" Clive said, shaking Layton's hand. "And this is, ah..."

"Flora Reinhold," the girl said happily. "Daughter of the village mayor."

"I see. My flat isn't very far, just follow me," Layton said. "Come on, Luke, we're off!" The boy, Luke, nodded and jumped off the bed, following Layton and the party through the streets of London. While Flora and Luke instantly bounced off together to investigate every single part of Clive's new flat in great detail, while Clive sat down with Layton.

"Don't be naive here," Layton began. "This isn't a city for pretty people. It's a dark, unforgiving city. See the whores out there? They're all normal girls. They've no way to get money. Also, if you plan to hold a reputation, you have to pull whores regularly. It's not a tradition I particularly like. I Changed in my forties, and considering I'm the unofficial head of the entire crime scene in the city, it's one I am allowed to avoid. A young man like you is stuck. I can pull some strings now and get you a job in the casino. Enjoy it." He handed over a wad of cash. "This'll do you well for a while. All the rooms in the house are very well soundproofed, so don't worry much about Flora."

Clive hadn't expected anything nice out of London and had really expected it to be worse than this. What he got sounded fair enough. Fair enough for a screwed-up city escaping any kind of government and ruled by Descole's Mafia and Layton's crime.

As night fell, he put Flora to bed and left to the darkness of the city. Clive looked up at the flat and sighed. Why did he have to take someone so innocent into the city of death? He could survive, but Flora?

"Hey." Without his knowledge, a whore had snuck up on Clive. "Looking for someone?"

"For you, probably."


End file.
